The Way to Babylon (Different Kingdoms) (29 page)

It darkened, and they made camp. A fire was lit at the base of a broad crag, and they sat around it whilst a Hearthware took sentry and the night was blown in around them. Riven was stiff all over, hardly able to stretch himself flat. But once the horses were unsaddled, rubbed down and hobbled, he spread a blanket on the hard ground and took his place at the evening meal with the others. Thick slabs of bacon sizzled on a pan by the fire, and they mopped up the fat with grainy bread, washing it down with spring water.

A drizzle ran in streams down the rocks and dewed the horses, but the fire kept the worst of its effects from them. The burning heather curls gave off a bright, intense heat but burned quickly, and they each took their turn at collecting a pile, so the fire could be kept going, through part of the night at least. Then the watches were arranged. Riven drew the watch before Murtach, who, as leader, took the last watch before dawn. They talked quietly amongst themselves for a while of inconsequential things, content to watch the fire and feel the tiredness in their muscles; then rolled themselves in their cloaks and slept.

Riven was woken for his watch in the dead of night by a yawning Hearthware.

‘All quiet,’ said the man in a low voice. ‘Murtach is on after you. You might build up the fire a little.’ Then he left for the warmth of his blankets.

Shivering and sore, Riven stood up and buckled his sword. The fire was a mess of glowing embers that spat at the light rain. He searched around and found the pile of heather, and fed the fire until the flames licked up to warm him. He blew through his hands. The rain had soaked into his cloak as he slept, and it hung in heavy damp folds on his shoulders. He thought of his bed at the Rorim; then he thought of Madra in it, her warmth under him and her hands on his back, her hair in his mouth.

He checked the horses, but they were quiet, standing resting one leg at a time, with their eyes half-closed. The wind had dropped, he noticed. The rain fell silently and invisibly, kissing his scarred forehead. A soft night.

It was the click of rock beyond the firelight that made him turn. He stared out into the wet darkness, and heard it again. He wanted to wake up the sleepers, but it might merely be a rabbit, or a fox. He stood still, and heard then the sound of pebbles shifting under feet—more than one set of feet—and there was the rattle of loose scree. He drew his sword and held it in front of him, the pulse pounding in his temples, but he was not yet afraid enough to wake the others.

And then he saw them come into the amber flicker of the firelight with the flames lighting green lamps in their heads. Three wolves. Two were winter wolves, pale as ghosts in the night, but the third was a dark, short-haired animal, larger than the others. Its mouth was open and it seemed to be grinning at him.

The two smaller animals padded towards him and lay down beside the fire with contented sighs, hardly giving him a glance.

They were Fife and Drum.

The third sat on its haunches in that twilit area between the light of the fire and the rainy blue darkness of the empty hills. Riven stared at it, wonder widening his eyes. And even as he watched it blurred. The lights in its eyes faded and he saw the pricked ears descend. It whined deep in its throat, as though in pain, and he saw the body grow paler as the fur sloughed away into nothing. The forepaws grew thicker, the hind legs longer, the torso broader. And then Murtach was crouched there, naked in the night, watching him. Riven lowered his blade, hands shaking. The little man stood up and came over to join him at the fire.

‘Well met, Michael Riven,’ he said quietly, and the words were distorted in his mouth, as though it were not yet the right shape for them. He was shivering, and fumbled in his bedroll for a cloak, which he pulled about his shoulders before crouching beside the fire once more. Fife and Drum followed him with their eyes, showing no surprise.

‘Christ,’ said Riven at last. He sat down on the bare rock and shook his head.

Murtach grinned, showing canines that were still long and wolfish. ‘Do you believe in magic now, my friend?’

Werewolves. Bloody hell.

‘What were you doing?’ he asked, not sure if he truly wanted to know. The little man shrugged, losing his gaze in the fire. His skin was goosepimpled.

‘A wolf can travel faster in this country than a mounted man—and more silently, too. I thought we might take a tour round the surrounding hills and make sure there were no hidden surprises. And besides, it has been a while since I have wandered four-footed with my children.’

Your children.

‘It’s one thing to write about it...’ Riven said dubiously. Werewolves. Bloody hell.

‘We did find something,’ Murtach went on. He looked at Riven closely. ‘A few miles out to the east we glimpsed the dark girl you and Bicker described from the Isle of Mist. She was wandering the crags. When we approached, she took to the steep places where we could not follow, and so we left her.’ He buried his eyes in the fire again. ‘Wolves can smell fear, and she was not afraid. They can smell other things also: she is dying, Riven.’

‘What do you mean?’ A chill caught him in the stomach.

‘I mean she is dying. She is bloodied and starved, though still swift on her feet. But how she is surviving out there, I cannot say...’ He trailed off. ‘Is she really your wife?’

‘I don’t know.’ He saw dark eyes with no recognition in them. But Bicker had seen her wandering Glenbrittle, and she had been to the bothy. She had tried to come home.

I don’t know.

‘I don’t know what she is,’ he said, blinking hard. ‘She doesn’t know me. She hardly seems real. I don’t know what she is.’

The little man pulled his cloak tighter about his shoulders. The drizzle was already soaking it darker.

‘I’m half-inclined to pursue her tomorrow; perhaps if we had her, we would have a few more answers to all this. But I’m not sure we could catch her if we tried. I don’t think it is meant to happen. She is not merely a girl.’ He paused. ‘Maybe she is suffering the same fate as Minginish,’ he said obscurely. And then he stood up in one fluid movement. ‘It is my watch. Dawn is not far off. I’ll dress and let you get some sleep.’

But Riven did not think he would sleep again that night.

B
Y DAWN THE
sky had cleared and was a hard, pale blue. They creaked awake and set to rousing the fire and cooking breakfast, the Hearthwares cursing the chill weight of their armour, hopping up and down to get the blood moving through their limbs. They ate breakfast standing, Riven wishing momentarily for coffee. But then Ratagan handed him a battered silver flask with a wink and he spluttered over strong barley spirit, the last of the cold burnt out of him. They rubbed down the horses roughly, saddled them, and then were on their way again, their fire circle buried under stones and heather tufts. They began to pick a path down out of the high land to where the towns and villages of Ralarth and its fiefs stretched green below them into the far distance, silent under the early sunlight.

They were heading northeast, the morning light in their right eyes and their shadows cast back towards the Skriaig and Ralarth’s western border. If they strained their eyes they could make out the clusters of houses and farmyards that were Suardal to the north, the pencil-thin bars of smoke already rising from them and the meagre herds moving across the open country like ants.

The day passed with little talk. It seemed the silence of the hills was infectious. They rode steadily downwards until it was grass under their steeds’ hoofs instead of rock, and there were trees and calm rivers meandering in the dips of hills. The sky clouded, grew overcast and heavy, and they waited patiently for the rain to start in on them again, knowing they would be in the warmth of Ivrigar by nightfall.

Riven kicked his mount ahead until he was level with Murtach at the front of the column, Fife and Drum trotting effortlessly off to one side. Oddly, they did not seem to bother the horses. Perhaps they had been in the Rorim long enough for the animals to become used to each other.

‘Tell me about the shapeshifting. Tell me about magic,’ Riven said.

Murtach looked at him with raised eyebrow. ‘Your own stories go a long way towards doing that.’

‘Tell me.’

The little man sucked his teeth for a moment. ‘Magic. Now there’s a thing. A strange thing. Do you know, Michael Riven, that I and my father are two of the lucky ones?’ He turned to Riven. ‘They had witch hunts here a generation ago, or more. They rooted out those folk who were not... ordinary, and banished them from Minginish. People are afraid of what they cannot understand.’

Werewolves and wheelchairs. Riven nodded.

‘The Warbutt was my father’s friend. He saved him from a mob. He could not save my mother.’ There was no inflection in Murtach’s voice. It had gone flat as flint. ‘As time went on, Guillamon became a trusted adviser, and eventually what you see now. But to do that, he had to forswear his... abilities. He has hardly used them since. Perhaps he has lost them by now. It is of no matter. These days we can joke about it, ask him to turn people into toads. Myself—I do not forget. An entire society was uprooted and destroyed, vanishing into the high mountains, never to return. And why? Because people were afraid of differences. My father has told me. There were witches who healed children and cattle, wizards who worked great things for lords. They were all swept away. And the land was made the poorer for it. The weaker.’ He smiled.

‘Mayhap if we had a few more wizards among us we would not now be in the straits we are in.’ Then the smile left him. ‘But there are those who blame the present plight of Minginish on the misdeeds of the past. They believe that the wizards and warlocks are still up there, in the mountains, working this evil on the land in revenge. People like Bragad believe this. They would be content to see another purge of the suspects, such as myself. It is one reason why you are here now, my friend. To keep Bragad from seeing another wizard in you. Such things would give him the freedom of action he craves. There would be pyres up and down the Dales and himself lighting them, redeeming the people. And they would believe him. In times like these, they are frightened enough to believe anything.’ He seemed to sniff the air. ‘The year turns already. It winds down into winter, and yet by rights it should be barely midsummer. There is indeed magic walking the earth. Perhaps it is in you. Perhaps it is in the dark girl who looks like your dead wife. I do not know. I think you carry our ruin in your pocket, Riven, but I cannot say how. And Minginish itself—it has a hand in it also, I believe. Your books do not tell the whole story. One man never can.’

‘Where did the magic come from?’ Riven asked.

‘You know the tale—you wrote it yourself. From the Dwarves, the Deep Ones of the Greshorns, the oldest folk of the earth. They gave the magic to a cripple named Birkinlig, and he took it to the lower land and in turn bestowed it upon his friends, his household. People came from far and near to see the wonders they wrought, and eventually, like the Myrcans, some of them accepted service with the lords of Minginish. Others went their own way, delving farther into the secrets that had been revealed to them, living in the deep woods of the high crags, visited by petitioners who sought aid. And so they scattered over Minginish, becoming the Hidden Folk. And now they are gone.’

‘Why a wolf?’ Riven asked him.

‘I can be anything up to a bear if you like. Or any
one
. I found Fife and Drum as cubs, the dog-wolf slain by hunters, the she-wolf dying. And so I became a she-wolf myself, and rescued them and suckled them. And they became my children. Does that shock you, Michael Riven?’

‘A little.’

Murtach chuckled. ‘It is not in your book, at any rate. In it I am an unreliable type, with too much of the wolf within me—is that not so?’

‘The stories are not always exact pictures. You know that.’

‘Yes, but it is interesting all the same. And now we find that the people who are troubling the Dales most at the moment are out of your own world—Bragad and Jinneth. Is there anyone else we should know about?’

Riven shook his head wearily, though he thought there might be. Then he rejoined Ratagan down the column. Talking to Murtach was like fighting a duel, at times.

Jenny is out there now, in those jagged hills to where the magicians and witches of the world were banished.

He was beginning to see a glimmer of sense about this world.

T
HEY BEGAN TO
meet people in their travelling, and actually came upon a gravelled road that some lord of Ralarth had laid down decades or centuries ago, the wagon ruts deep in it. The Hearthwares and Myrcans were greeted with friendliness and something like relief by the people they came upon—merchants in covered carts, farmers with flocks and herds, women bent under loads of firewood or water, children trailing behind them and eyeing the armoured figures on the big horses in wonder. Fife and Drum received a few wide-eyed stares, but for the most part the people seemed to recognise them and their owner. Murtach was greeted by name more than once, and one of the Hearthwares bent to receive a spray of honeysuckle from a dark-eyed girl who ogled him with adoration, to the amusement of his comrades.

At each village they came to, Murtach halted the company and paused to talk to the headman. Riven could not hear their speech, but there were always shakings of heads and grim looks. Some villages had wolf skins pinned to their doors, freshly flayed, and one they came to had the head of a Rime Giant set on a stake outside the headman’s house. The eyes had sunken in and the skull was showing through the thinning hair of the pate. A crow perched on it while they watched, and poked hopefully at the sockets.